China's Food Supply Sources Under Trade Conflict With the United States and Limited Domestic Land and Water Resources

Wenfeng Liu (1) , Hong Yang , Philippe Ciais (1) , Matti Kummu , Arjen Y. Hoekstra

1 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]

The U.S.-China trade conflict has already considerably reshaped China's food imports, and should the conflict continue, it might have substantial impacts on global food supply dynamics as well as China's food supply sources. We address these implications by analyzing recent trends in China's food imports and associated use of land and water resources. We show that China's limited land and water availability will make it challenging to replace soybean imports from the United States with its own production, but switching to new trading partners by investment and cooperation could secure China's food supply while avoiding much negative environmental impacts on exporting countries.

Keywords: food supply and trade; trade conflict; soybean; virtual land; virtual water

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Wenfeng Liu, Hong Yang, Philippe Ciais, Matti Kummu, Arjen Y. Hoekstra. China's Food Supply Sources Under Trade Conflict With the United States and Limited Domestic Land and Water Resources. Earth's Future, 2020, 8, ⟨10.1029/2019EF001482⟩. ⟨insu-03721903⟩